Album Description

Philly's "Constant Hitmaker" Kurt Vile brought a couple guitars, a banjo, a delay pedal, and a trusted microphone to the WFMU studios earlier this month. He played a few new tunes and a few from Constant Hitmaker (Gulcher), which has been one of my favorite albums of the year. I'm not alone -- Mike Lupica picked these "immediately appealing bedroom recordings" in Dusted's Mid-Year Roundup, citing their "fuzzed out melancholia that somehow invokes the spirit of Lee Hazlewood at his best." This stripped-down solo set -- without the multitracked synth, drum machine, and heady loops -- highlighted the darker aspects of Vile's songwriting, with some Songs-of-Leonard-Cohen-y chills. -Jason Sigal